In the fabrication of a smart card such as a contactless card or combi card in which the electrical components such as the antenna and a small IC module such as a thin microprocessor circuit which carries all the identification information and/or data, are embedded in a plastic supporting card base or substrate commonly made of PVC or other plastic material. The antenna consists of a plurality of windings of fine enamel coated magnet wire laid around or embedded into the edge portions of the supporting card. The terminal ends of the antenna are subsequently connected to the contact terminals of the IC module by soldering prior to affixing the IC module to the card with adhesive. It has been extremely problematic in carrying out the soldering operation of the antenna terminal ends to the IC module contact terminals due to firstly that the contact terminals of the IC module are very small in physical size which is typically less than three square millimeter; and secondly that the fine enamel coated magnet wire of the antenna is extremely difficult to handle and to maintain in a fixed position at the contact terminals of the IC module while they are being soldered with a soldering iron, and also in the meantime, having to place solder to the heated contacts to carry out the soldering operation. Thus, the soldering operation requires extremely high dexterity to carry out these various tasks simultaneously and manually. Moreover, the operation is further complicated by the low melting point of the plastic card base such that any prolong contact or exposure of the plastic card and/or the substrate to the heated soldering iron tip in the soldering process would invariably cause detrimental deformation of the plastic material to render the card not unacceptable.
Another problem is the necessity of pre-coating the terminal ends of the antenna magnet wire with solder in order to facilitate soldering them to the IC module contact terminals. The enamel coating of the magnet wire may not be physically stripped due to its fine gauge size which is typically about AWG 38; furthermore, only a short length of the antenna terminal ends is reserved for making the connection to the module during fabrication, such short length is not conducive for stripping by mechanical means. The enamel coating on the terminal ends of the magnet wire antenna must first be removed so that a coating of solder flux material may be applied thereon prior to using the heated soldering iron to form the solder coating on the wire. Commonly, the removal of the enamel coating and the application of solder coating on a an enamel coated magnet wire may be carried out simultaneously by applying the solder flux over the enamel coating and then applying heat from the soldering iron or dipping the flux coated wire vertically into a heated pod containing melted solder such that the melted solder would break down the enamel coating as well as would coat the wire with solder simultaneously. However, such methods may not be employed for pre-coating the terminal ends of the antenna magnet wire embedded in the plastic card base of an identification card, since the plastic card would invariably be deformed by the heat of the solder pod when the card is placed close vertically above the latter. Even applying the pre-coating solder to the antenna terminal ends with a soldering iron is rather skill challenging because of the close proximity of the heated soldering iron tip to plastic card and the plastic substrate of the IC module.